


Hard Sell

by Mollyamory (Molly)



Series: Soft Sciences [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bruce Banner Has Issues, Like really really slow, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012), Science Bros to Science Boyfriends, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 22:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Mollyamory
Summary: The work spools out over long days and late nights, and even dead tired, Bruce feels like he's slowly waking up again.





	Hard Sell

**Author's Note:**

> Much appreciation to Dorinda and Laurificus for the beta work! All mistakes remaining are mine.

Tony offers the world, with a slight delay for construction. What Bruce actually gets is a desk in the middle of an immense, mostly empty lab that nobody else in the building ever uses. It’s his, though; there's a nameplate on the door that reads _Dr. Bruce Banner_ , and under that _Chief Demolitions Officer_. Bruce wonders if that kind of title comes with a salary at the end of the month, or a bill.

The door to the lab unlocks to his voice and thumbprint, and locks behind him after he steps inside. Bruce appreciates both the privacy and the security. Not even Tony can get in without asking permission. And while that permission is given - on a permanent and ongoing basis - Tony still asks, every rare time he drops by. JARVIS responds to Bruce's questions and requests when they're voiced out loud; the rest of the time, he's a comforting presence in wry orange sans-serif text wherever he's needed. It's exactly what Tony promised -- quiet, stress-free, solitary. 

Maybe a little too solitary. He sees Tony at random intervals, usually when their meals happen to sync up, but in the lab he's on his own. He’s grown used to people over the last few years -- the press of bodies on crowded streets, worried faces and voices of the sick or injured. Calcutta was a river of life all around him, running broad and fast and deep enough to drown any trace of Bruce Banner in its waters. But he can't deny that the emptiness here wraps around him like a steel and glass cocoon, that the loneliness itself is cool and soft and freeing. 

There's no one here to hide from, no one to protect. No one to break his concentration, make him angry, make him want to fight. He sinks into himself, spending his days -- and not a few of his nights, after Tony abandons Pepper's sofa for his mostly-repaired suite upstairs -- alone with the machines and the silence. 

The view is the best part; at times it feels like Tony really did manage to give him the sky. In the mornings, the sunrise feels intense and personal, as if it’s happening just for him. At dusk, the nearby buildings are dark silhouettes broken by random bright windows, like sparks drifting up on columns of grey smoke. Bruce dims the lights when the sun goes down, works in the glow of the screens and images that hover around him. Peace seeps into him, slow and inevitable, shoring up the battered scraps of his internal armor. 

It's on one of these late nights, maybe two weeks in, that JARVIS says, "I'm sorry to interrupt, Dr. Banner, but you have a visitor. I've been instructed by Mr. Stark to tell you that you're under no obligation to see or speak to anyone unless you really, really _really_ want to."

Curious, Bruce pushes up his glasses and turns toward the door. "Who is it?" he asks JARVIS, playing for time to cover his surprise.

"Ms. Pepper Potts."

"Oh." That's unexpected; that's something Bruce has to think about. He's not really dying to meet new people, but he _has_ been living in her house for a month. Sending her away would probably seem ungrateful. "Uh, yeah," he tells JARVIS. "Yes, of course, let her in."

The door slides open and she steps into the room, tall and confident, moving with grace and caution. He can see in her eyes -- at once warm and solemn -- that she's been fully briefed. He wonders if the restraint comes from respect for his privacy, or fear of his Jekyll and Hyde routine. 

She crosses the room and stands in front of him, a tiny smile on her lips. And then -- before he can move away, before he can even think to move away, she's taken both of his hands in hers. She squeezes with surprising strength and leans in to place a quick kiss on his cheek. "Thank you," she says in a low, warm voice. "Tony told me what you did -- for him, for all of us. I can't imagine what it must have cost you. Thank you, so, so much."

Bruce catches his breath, frozen in her grip, his hands clutching hers with equal strength. He absolutely cannot think of a single thing to say. His heart-rate kicks up a predictable notch, but he can't even worry about that. He laughs, unexpectedly and explosively; it's obscenely loud in this always-quiet place, and he doesn't even care. He pulls back and looks at her; her eyes are dancing, her smile as wide as his, her cheeks flushed, and for the first time since she walked in it occurs to him that she's actually quite beautiful. 

"You're welcome," he tells her, finally. "You're very, very welcome, Ms. Potts."

~

She calls him Bruce, and asks him to call her Pepper. It’s a verbal dance Tony had skipped right over; he calls Bruce whatever he feels like in the moment, and Bruce counts that as an invitation to a first-name basis. 

Finding a clear spot, Pepper slides up onto his desk, her feet crossed at the ankles. She's wearing sneakers with no socks, jeans that stop mid-calf, and a deep blue Stark Industries hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She keeps her eyes on his while she ties her hair up into a ponytail with an elastic band she'd been wearing around her wrist. When she's done, she drops her hands into her lap and says, "I'm glad you're here."

"Thank you," Bruce says. He pulls his chair back from the desk and takes a seat, looking up at her. "So am I."

"Tony said you've been staying in my apartment?"

Oh. Bruce's eyebrows go up. He hadn't really thought about that. "I can --"

"No, no," Pepper says. "It's fine, Bruce. I don't mind at all. Honestly, it's not even really mine. I think of it as ... my favorite suite at a really nice hotel. There's no shortage of living space in the Tower, and mostly when I'm here, I'm with Tony anyway. I hope you've been comfortable?"

He's been better than comfortable. He's been rested, well-fed, left alone -- he's been happy here. But --

"If there's no shortage of living space, why did Tony put me in yours?"

"He likes you." Pepper shrugs, smiling at him. "I don't know, I think he feels more like a host this way. Less like a landlord. I truly, truly don't mind. You're not putting me out in the slightest."

"Still. Now that you're home, you should get to have your home back."

Pepper watches him in the low light from the desk lamp. "Tony said you'd probably say something like that. He didn't say you'd be quite this stubborn about it. If you're really uncomfortable with staying there while I'm in the building, we can set you up on a different level. But you should know, he's going to be annoyed with both of us, and when Tony is annoyed..."

"Yeah," Bruce says, wincing a little. "I've seen that show once or twice."

Pepper grins widely. "Then let's not tune in again, shall we? Anyway, I just wanted to ask if there's anything you need. Repairs to Tony's suite are mostly finished, and I'm going to be moving the rest of my stuff up there. I want you to think of this as your place now." Her smile softens at the edges, and her head tilts to one side. "For as long as you're here...?"

Bruce flicks his eyes up to hers, amused. "That's very smooth. Subtle, even." There's no question what Tony sees in her; he sees _himself_. 

Her smile doesn't fade a single watt. "I do what I can."

"Well, as to the first part of your question, thank you, but your place -- my place, for now? Is great. JARVIS makes sure I get anything I ask for." 

"Something tells me what you need and what you ask for aren't always the same thing."

Bruce leans back in his chair. He takes his glasses off, sliding them into the front pocket of his shirt, and looks at her for a long, quiet moment. Pepper returns the favor, her face calm and still; if she's at all worried about his mood, she's not giving any of it away. 

"These sudden insights into my character you and Tony keep having," he says finally. "They're mildly--"

"Intrusive? Off-putting?"

Bruce shrugs. "I was going to go with annoying. But your way works, too."

"Well," Pepper says. "I suppose if you're just mildly annoyed, this conversation's still going pretty well."

"Oh, annoyed isn't the problem. I can do annoyed all day. It's angry you want to worry about."

"Want to know a secret?" Pepper leans closer and lowers her voice. "I'm not all that worried."

"Also a little annoying. Seriously, what is wrong with you two?"

Pepper tips her head back and laughs, retreating back into her own space. "Oh, Bruce. So many, many things."

Bruce just shakes his head, a confused sense of lightness flooding his chest. He doesn't understand how this keeps happening. How people keep finding pieces of him that he didn't know had gone missing, and handing them back to him. He doesn't even know if they know they're doing it. It's been so long since anything made him want to laugh, since anyone made him want to _stay_. 

The wanting itself is an unjustifiable risk. Wanting makes him wonder if it's a risk worth taking; he has to remind himself, again and again, that it's not his risk to take. When Bruce Banner rolls the dice, _he_ never loses. Everybody else does.

"Needs are absolutes," he says finally, looking away. "I try not to think in those terms. It's not really conducive to maintaining my friendly disposition." Pepper makes a small, amused sound, and Bruce glances up in time to catch the fading edge of her smile. 

"That doesn't sound like a very fulfilling way to live," she says. 

Bruce presses his lips together. She's not wrong, and not a hundred percent right, either. "Things I want...those things are a lot of times out of my reach. There's a lot to be said for getting some of the smaller stuff, though. It helps. And I'm learning that's something JARVIS -- Tony, really -- seems to excel at."

"If you're here long enough, you'll see he can be pretty good at the big stuff, sometimes, too."

Bruce ducks his head, huffs out a small laugh. "Well, I'm certainly learning he's not reluctant to try."

"So... the last part of my question?" Pepper taps at his knee with the toe of her sneaker. "You don't have to answer. But I hope you know you're welcome here for as long as you want -- or need -- to stay." 

"Thank you. That alone is more than I've had in a while. It means more than you might think."

"Small stuff, huh?" 

"All this, for as long as I want it?" Bruce waves a hand at the lab, and by extension at the home they've offered him. "Doesn't really count as small stuff, for me. It's pretty big, actually. That's kind of the problem."

"Too much to handle all at once?" Pepper guesses. "Not an uncommon reaction around here. Excess is an occupational hazard."

"Not too much." Bruce thinks about it; it really isn't, at least not right now. "Maybe a little too fast. I'm just... I'm going to need some time to get used to it."

Pepper beams at him, and leans forward to take his hand. "Time is another thing we want to give you," she says warmly. "We just really hope you'll take it."

~

While he's waiting for Bruce to uncork himself from his lab and come out to play with him, Tony starts building a better Quinjet. He's got the time, and while SHIELD's engineers made a decent first draft, their overall design leaves a great deal to be desired. Plus the current model is old, three or four years out of date at least. That's the problem with government contracts -- it takes so long to get the tools approved, built and paid for, they're a generation behind the science by the time they roll off the assembly line. 

Tony's way is better. Stark Industries is one-stop-shopping for up-to-the-minute awesome -- research, design, apply money, assemble. The future of flying, built to order for a party of seven (he counts Bruce twice and builds him a bigger berth, just in case). Full control over the process gives him full confidence in its reliability. 

Plus, this way he gets to pick the colors.

Like the rest of the building, the hangar has been built to serve as an extension of Tony's will. Calculations are completed almost before he asks for them, parts he needs are brought to him, information he needs is fed to his console or his screens or read aloud to him as the situation requires. His environment is as responsive to his will as a symphony is to a master conductor. 

For fun, he likes to do most of the assembly himself. _By_ himself. JARVIS keeps lesser mortals at bay, and for long, deep hours it's just Tony and the work, one spark of connection flowing smoothly into the next, and the next, and the next. He keeps the music loud to drown out everything but the plans taking on solid shape and life under his hands. 

It takes a while, but not -- to Banner's credit -- as long as Tony had expected. Curiosity, Tony wonders, or courtesy? When you live in somebody's house, it's only polite to check in at least occasionally, but maybe the Tower Formerly Known as Stark is too big to count as a house. He gives Bruce a few minutes to announce his arrival or his intentions, but when nothing comes of it, he takes matters into his own hands.

"The user interface is completely adaptable to a functionally infinite variety of personal kinetic profiles," Tony tells Bruce's silent, awkward presence, not bothering to look up from his keyboard. "It's as individual as DNA." He stops, then turns around and leans back against his desk, eyeing Bruce speculatively. "Well, maybe not quite as individual as yours," he amends.

Bruce smiles, a quick, bland mask that's there and gone in a heartbeat. "Fortunately for the world, I'm only one in about seven billion."

"It's learning you right now. The longer you stay, the better it works. Another few weeks and it'll be second nature. A few months? You'll basically be a technopath as long as you stay in the building. And I've got some plans in the works; that restriction's only temporary. Inside a year, JARVIS will be able to follow you anywhere on the planet."

"Has anyone ever mentioned you've got a distinctly creepy recruitment style?"

"No, but with most people all it takes is, 'Hi, I'm Tony Stark.' I'm still banging some of the kinks out of my hard sell."

"I'm here, aren't I?" 

"Sure, but for how long?" 

Bruce just laughs. After a suitable interval, about two seconds, Tony says, "That wasn't rhetorical; I actually mean, for how long?"

"I don't know. A while." Bruce throws him a sharp, warning look. "Don't worry so much about it. I've got a roof over my head, and nobody's trying to kill me. For the moment, this is as good a place as any."

"As good a --" Tony sputters, rendered momentarily speechless. To fill the void in the conversation left by Bruce's shocking and unprovoked slur against Tony's hospitality, he says, "Okay, let's -- let's put a pin in that, and come back to it. Moving on, I know this may be rude, but I can't help it: What exactly are you wearing?"

Bruce looks down at his grey slacks and sort of grey-brown jacket, at the button down shirt that Tony generously assumes was white when it was purchased by the encyclopedia salesman Bruce likely stole it from. "This? I had SHIELD ship me the rest of my things from Calcutta. It was that or spend the rest of my time here wearing your old T-shirts. This seemed like the better option."

Tony's mouth drops open. "Really? _Why?_ "

Bruce grins, and unwinds enough to take off the jacket. "What are you working on?"

"Super-secret invisible official team aircraft slash spaceship of the Avengers," Tony says, "and I have a lot of old T-shirts, Bruce. For that matter, I can also buy you some new ones. Not me personally; I'll have someone do it. Pepper's assistant can do it. What's your shirt size?"

"I'll think about it." Bruce comes closer to look over the tools and circuitry laid out across Tony's work table. "This looks…complicated."

"It's going to be a containment field generator when it grows up."

"Cool." Bruce rolls up his sleeves. "What can I do?"

~

Bruce lets Tony show him around the hangar. The tour goes over his head in a few places, but he doesn't mind it; he actually finds himself relaxing under the rise and fall of Tony's voice. The transparent domed roof lets in a flood of sunshine but minimal heat; the hangar is almost chilly, the circulating air cool and sterile. It's Tony's company that makes the space feel warm, and Bruce lets himself bask in it. He's here, after all. He might as well enjoy it.

"What do you think?" Tony says when he's done pointing out every nut and bolt, beaming at his baby like a proud papa. "Gorgeous, isn't she?"

"It's a very nice plane," Bruce allows. Sleek and silver, reflecting the blue sky above and the black acrylic floor below, it's very nearly invisible and at the same time, very emphatically pretty. "Very… glam."

"Plane?" Tony rears back, eyes narrowing. "I'm sorry. Did I hear you say _plane_? This isn't a plane, Bruce. This a _lady_. A beautiful, brilliant, bad-ass lady who will kick the aeronautic ass of anything that tests her patience in the sky. She can take you wherever you want to go, faster than anything else on the planet can get you there. She can take you out to lunch on the moon, if that's what you're into. Once I'm done building her, that is. _Plane_ ," he says again, shaking his head at Bruce in disgust. "I'm thinking of _marrying_ her."

"I'm sure you'll be very happy together." Bruce walks over, trails a hand down the side of one seamless panel. It's like brushing his fingers over liquid mercury, frictionless. He looks back at Tony, smiling. There hasn't been a lot of room for amusement in his life for the past few years, but he's living in Stark territory now. It's a big place; there's room for just about everything. "So, if your new girlfriend is so perfect, why are her guts hanging out all over the floor?"

"Little problem with the cooling system. Nothing big, but I could use a hand with it, if you're willing." Tony claps a hand on Bruce's shoulder and steers him toward the ramp that leads up and inside. "On takeoff, bits of her keep catching fire…"

~

Bruce isn't really a nuts-and-bolts kind of scientist, but Tony's got that part handled. The rest is just profanity and math. Tony chases off anyone who dares interrupt them, and they spend most of the time working alone, godawful music pouring out of hidden speakers. 

Tony at work isn't anything like Tony the rest of the time. Bruce expected him to be infuriating; he was looking at it as kind of a secret stress test. But on a project, Tony is focused and intense, baseline brilliant with random spikes of genius that take Bruce's breath away. The work spools out over long days and late nights, and even dead tired, Bruce feels like he's slowly waking up again. 

A few mechanics in black jumpsuits come and go when they need more than four hands, but it's Tony who really digs into the guts of the jet and comes out wild-haired and grease-smeared, grinning. He talks to himself, and he talks to his robots, and he talks to Bruce, but he doesn't need or expect any of them to answer back. He sings under his breath, and Bruce is pretty sure he doesn't know it. 

"Can you pass me that soldering iron?" Tony asks. He's chest-deep in a dead console, his empty hand stretched out behind him. It's not clear if he's talking to Bruce or to Dum-E, but since Dum-E is spinning in lazy, confused circles on the other side of the hangar, Bruce is the one who brings it over. 

"Cut the power for a minute, would you?" he says on another day, and Bruce leaps to do it before Tony can assume it's done and fry himself. 

It's clear Tony doesn't really need the help, but Bruce finds himself showing up every morning anyway. He holds a flashlight at just the right angle while Tony crawls around in the jet's cabled jungle of an underbelly. He reads two unpublished journal articles on the arc reactor technology that powers the entire Tony Stark experience and corrects several appalling errors -- one in the math, three in the grammar, the rest in creative spelling. 

It's nice having someone around making noise, especially noise Bruce doesn't have to respond to. It's nice being somewhere that somebody wants him to be. When he misses silence and solitude, it's still back in his lab waiting for him. But if he's honest with himself -- and he tries to be -- he doesn't really miss it that much. 

A week or so into the project, he sits in his usual spot on a long, high work bench, his feet dangling in the air, and calls up some screens. He tracks Tony's calculations in one, Google news in another, and checks his email in a third. Tony joins him after a while, reading unabashedly over his shoulder as he downs a bottle of water. 

"Am I boring you, Doctor Banner?" he asks, knocking his shoulder against Bruce's. "With my secret super-hero stealth jet technology?"

"What? No, of course not. Why would you--" 

"I can't help but notice that I'm making engineering history over there," Tony waves a wrench in the direction of the plane, "and you just clicked on a live feed of C-SPAN."

"I'm capable of multitasking," Bruce says, not half so affronted as he pretends to be. "You're not the only genius in the room, you know."

"True," Tony says, "but all the same, I'm starting to think my brilliance may have exceeded your attention span. How about we get out of here for a while? There's an amazing sushi place just a couple blocks away --" Tony's face darkens. "--at least I hope there is. Fucking aliens. Hey, JARVIS --"

"It re-opened last week, sir."

"There you go." Tony nudges his leg into Bruce's encouragingly. "Food sounds good, right?"

In point of fact, Bruce hasn't left the Tower since he arrived in it. There hasn't been any need to. Now that he's thinking about it, the idea feels bigger than it should. He thinks about the open spaces of his rooms, his lab, this workshop -- they've started to feel comfortable, normal even. He's started to feel somewhat safe up here in the sky Tony threatened to give him, and then delivered. 

Street level, though, that's... maybe something else.

"I don't know," he says, trying to fit the idea of it into himself. "I'm not sure I'm really -- crowd-safe, at this point."

Tony leans back to look into Bruce's face. "So, I'm hearing that you don't want to go to lunch with me." 

It's a deeper examination than Bruce is expecting, and his comfort level takes a nosedive. "I'm categorically not saying that."

"Sure you are. Nat fished you up off the streets of Calcutta, so I know you're not telling me you can't walk two city blocks in midtown Manhattan without triggering an incident. At the very least, I know you're not expecting me to buy into that excuse, because we've already established that neither of us are morons."

Bruce drops his head into his hands and lets out a sound he hopes is indicative of his level of frustration. There's nothing but bite in Tony sometimes; once he gets his teeth into something, he never lets it go. Bruce takes a second to balance himself out, then pulls his hands away from his face and leans back, his head resting against the wall. 

Tony matches Bruce's position, shoulder to shoulder, and for a few seconds he keeps blessedly quiet. By now, Bruce knows better than to expect that to last. He rolls his head to the side to look at Tony and finds him smiling, his eyes lit up.

"Jesus, Tony."

"What?" His smile widens. "Did I say something wrong?

"I thought your SHIELD file was just exaggerating, but you really are a total pain in the ass."

At that, Tony laughs out loud. "Yeah, that's been said." He stands up and shoves his hands into his pockets, his smile fading till it's all but invisible. "You do intend to make me work for this, don't you."

Bruce feels his face going hot, but there's nothing he can do about it. He can't help smiling back. He's been on his own too long, he hasn't built up a tolerance. Even before Hulk, he's not sure he could have withstood _this_.

"Maybe I'm just trying to help you work on your hard sell," Bruce says finally. 

Tony rolls his eyes. "Thanks." He grabs Bruce by the wrist, tugs him off the table and cocks his head toward the door. "So. Lunch?"

"Apparently."

"Excellent." Tony claps his hands together in a totally gratuitous show of victory, then drops them to Bruce's shoulders to steer him toward the door. "Now, I don't want to alarm you, but when we get outside, there might be a big flaming yellow ball in the sky. It puts out a lot of light and heat, but try not to freak out. It's totally harmless." 

Bruce throws Tony a dark look over his shoulder. "I don't even _like_ sushi," he says.

~

It's quiet in the elevator; for once Tony doesn't keep up a running commentary, and Bruce is grateful for the reprieve. It's quiet in the lobby of Stark Tower, too; there are a few people scattered around, visitors and employees, but something about the acoustics keeps their conversations distant, muted. The glass front of the lobby is thick enough to block sound and opaque enough, for now, to soften the afternoon sun. 

So it's only when Tony says, "Here we go, big guy," and pushes through the doors to the street that the full force of the outside world crashes into him. 

The noise batters at his ears, car engines and blaring horns and shouted conversations, the clattering and banging of reconstruction, the high piercing beeps of something backing up across the street. Light and color like an assault on his eyes, billboards and street signs and _people_. So many of them, so different, clothes a riot of shades, rushing past on foot, on skateboards, bikes, roller blades, and then Tony has a hand on his shoulder and looms in close so his face takes up Bruce's entire field of vision. 

"Hey, Banner. Breathe or something, buddy. You pass out on me, I'm gonna have no choice but to film it and put it up on YouTube. Don't make me do it, you know how you hate publicity--"

"I'm not passing out," Bruce says, shoving Tony's hand off him. He takes a few deep breaths to get steady, but it doesn't help. "I'm... adapting to a sudden change in my environment. Give me a second."

"You did know you were in New York City, right?"

"Yeah, and right now I'm rethinking all the choices that brought me here."

Tony takes a big step back, raising his hands to show he's no threat. "Okay, fair enough. Look, see? This is me, backing off. Don't make any rash decisions under the influence of --"

"--your personality?" Bruce says pointedly.

"Ouch," Tony says, one hand coming down to rest protectively over his arc reactor. "Nice shootin', Tex. We still going to lunch, or are you just going to stand there and break my heart all day?"

Lunch, Bruce decides, though spending a few quality hours saying snide, cutting things to Tony doesn't sound like a wasted afternoon at the moment. He waves his hand at the flow of humanity on the sidewalk, and lets Tony lead the way into it. 

They fall into step naturally, shoulders brushing as they walk. Tony plays tour guide, pointing out key landmarks like "that's where I flew into a giant flying whale" and "this is a great coffee shop, I think Steve saved a barista here or something." Signs of the battle are everywhere, even three weeks later -- rubble and debris being slowly cleared away, buildings with yawning holes where windows or store fronts used to be. They've gone a full block when Tony points out a van selling Iron Man t-shirts and Captain America ball caps out of the back; "Give me a Cap cap and two large t-shirts, the red ones" he tells the girl in charge, and grossly overpays with a crisp hundred dollar bill. 

"Told you I'd get you some new ones," Tony says, tossing a t-shirt at Bruce with a grin. "A Stark always keeps his promises."

They keep going, each now with a t-shirt tossed over one shoulder. Tony guides them through a left turn and then a right. They pass a free street clinic being conducted under a large tent, the Stark Relief Foundation logo on the breast of the doctors' scrubs. 

_I should be out here,_ Bruce thinks, and can't believe it didn't occur to him sooner; he's only been thinking of himself, his own comfort, his own peace of mind. 

He turns to Tony to say it out loud, and finds he doesn't have to. Tony's watching him with those dark, knowing eyes, and he shakes his head before Bruce can even open his mouth. "We flew in an army of people with actual medical degrees, Bruce. For the first week, there was a mobile pop-up clinic every block or so -- at least here, at the epicenter. There's less need, the further out you go. When patients stop showing up, they move on to the next place that needs one. We're in the wrap-up phase; once the power came back on, hospitals started opening their doors again. The Foundation is mostly just supplemental now."

"I didn't even think about it." 

"It's not your job to think about it. It's mine."

Bruce shakes his head. "How does that work, Tony? I'm probably responsible for some of the injuries these doctors have been treating. I just -- I didn't think."

"Billionaire philanthropist," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Keep up. I'm the big picture guy. Do you have a family relief foundation? No? I didn't think so."

"I could've been out here helping. I should've been--."

"No." Tony stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and puts a hand on Bruce's arm to stop him, too. "What you should've been doing is coming to terms with a huge shift in the way you see yourself and your big green alter ego. You should've been giving some thought to the fact that you were instrumental in saving this city and trying to figure out how to replicate that success in the future. Have you been doing that?"

"Yes, but --"

"Look, Banner. I like you, so I'm going to try to say this as gently as possible: _You're not qualified_ to do the job my people are doing. I'm sure you were a fine addition to whatever back alley clinic you hid out in back in Calcutta, but you would have been utterly, completely useless down here. You want to make a difference here, in the world we live in today? You do that in a lab, with your devastatingly brilliant scientific mind and your seven fucking PhDs. Not out on the street with a guilt complex and a bottle of iodine."

"Christ, Tony," Bruce snaps. "Has it ever occurred to you that you might not know me as well as you think you do? That I might possibly have a little more insight into my condition and my capabilities than a guy I met less than a month ago in the middle of a global crisis?"

"No, not even once. Why would it? You've got a giant green blind spot that prevents you from being a reliable narrator of your own autobiography. So, no," Tony says, his voice rising to match Bruce's intensity, "your opinions and insights on the topic of your self-worth are of no discernible use in this conversation. Any other questions?"

Bruce bites down on everything inside him, fighting to keep his anger in check; oddly, he has no sense that the other guy is tuned in at the moment, but it's not worth taking the risk on a busy street. Not over this; not because Tony fucking Stark has decided he knows Bruce better than Bruce knows himself. 

Bruce has made a decade's study of his own inner landscape and the other guy's triggers, devoted years of research and focused practice to learning how to balance on the knife edge between rage and reason. He could take an 8th fucking PhD in Bruce Banner keeping his cool, so why the hell is it that this man, this virtual stranger, can push him so hard and so far off center? Tony seems to know where all Bruce's buttons are, like he'd designed and installed them personally. And because he's a lunatic, he's not at all shy about pushing them.

Bruce runs a hand roughly through his hair and stalks toward the curb, putting some distance between them. He looks around almost desperately, trying to split his focus, to bleed some of his tension off into something less dangerous. Something less personal. Across the street, a crane stretches its arm up to parallel a long, diagonal gash in the stonework, and Bruce watches as men in bright yellow hats (and Stark Relief Foundation jackets, they're _everywhere_ ) work to patch the damage. 

His eyes trace the jagged line of torn masonry down toward street level until it vanishes, somewhere near the second floor. That's when his eyes catch a familiar flash of vibrant green. A truck passes on the street, temporarily blocking his view; frowning, Bruce starts forward without looking where he's going.

"Hey, hang on. There's such a thing as a cross walk." Tony grabs Bruce by the shoulders and hauls him out of traffic as a horn blares furiously, right on top of them. Bruce barely notices, squinting like it can help him see through the construction equipment lining the street. 

"What is that?" Bruce demands, his heartbeat kicking up a notch. "Is that --"

"Nothing to freak out over. It's kind of cool, actually. C'mon, I'll get you there. You'll like it."

Bruce isn't so sure of that, but he lets himself be led to the corner of the street, then across as soon as the lights change. His heart is in his throat, and he sucks in air so fast it makes him lightheaded. Tony pulls him down the sidewalk to the bottom of that long, angry slash and there, beneath it, he sees --

Himself. His _other_ self. The enormous green rage monster who paradoxically is taking absolutely no notice of Bruce's current emotional status. It makes sense, in a way -- he's pissed at Tony and he's off balance, but there's no threat here, so there's no Hulk here. He's just deeply, thoroughly annoyed -- and logic aside, that feels like it should be prime Hulk territory. 

But Hulk's been here already. Maybe he doesn't feel the need to revisit the scenes of his crimes.

On the side of the building, where the broken line fades into whole stone again, someone has put significant skill and talent into a ten foot tall graffiti replica of the other guy. One green arm is thrown up, fingers splayed as if they're hooked into the wall. The face is a twisted mask of fury, acid green eyes glaring from bloodshot whites, lips pulled back to reveal blunt yellowed teeth clenched together in the massive jaw. 

"See?" Tony says quietly beside him. His eyes are shining, warm -- and Bruce can barely breathe around the knot in his chest. "See that?" Tony points, pulling them closer. "Look what you did."

Pinned against the other guy's side there's a gleam of red and gold. Iron Man, the arc reactor a dark hole in his breastplate, the eyes in the gold mask dark and empty. Hulk cradles the suit gently, his arm hooked around Tony's chest. 

"This is where you saved my life. I'd be a wet spot on the sidewalk if you hadn't been there. You know the story."

Bruce knew. He'd read the after-action report Cap had filed with SHIELD. He knew Tony had fallen, he knew Hulk had caught him. He knew Tony felt like he owed Bruce something because of it. They hadn't discussed it, but Bruce could feel it behind the offer of a place to stay, that first night. He could see it in the warmth of Tony's eyes sometimes, when he didn't think Bruce was watching.

But Bruce hadn't known _this._ There was no way he could ever have known about this.

He looks again into the monster's face, and the image flickers, like a hologram. Like one of those old Magic Eye pictures, when you stared at it a little too long. The expression in those green eyes is fear; the vicious scowl is desperation. Something the graffiti artist had injected into the piece? Something Bruce is projecting, maybe? It can't be real, can it? Hulk thinks only of himself, he knows only rage and the drive to destroy. 

He doesn't... can't...fear for someone other than himself. Can he? He can't _care_. 

"Did it ever occur to you," Tony says softly, his eyes on the painted figure on the wall, "that maybe you don't know yourself quite as well as you think you do? That maybe someone unbiased by years of guilt and fear might see you a little more clearly, sometimes, than you can see yourself?"

"Not even once," Bruce says hoarsely. But now that he's seen it, he can't _un_ see it. In the image on the wall, the Hulk holds Tony like he's wrapped in glass instead of steel; like Bruce would have himself, if he'd been there. If _he_ had possessed the strength and speed to break Tony's fall. 

"Well, you should give it some thought." Tony nudges into Bruce with his shoulder, hard enough that Bruce has to compensate to keep his balance. "I'm a pretty smart guy, you know."

Bruce barks out a laugh, a sudden punch of sound that takes him by surprise. It tastes like poison, like something vile and unhealthy condensed around his tongue. 

He fights off an urge to spit, and just breathes it out instead -- out, on a long, slow exhale and then a cool, slow breath back in. Out, then in. And again. Until the last of the poison is gone, and his breath comes in clear and clean, filling his chest with something he thinks might be hope. 

_You can't keep doing this to me,_ he wants to say to Tony. _You can't keep cracking me open like this, just because you think you know what's inside._ But Bruce knows it wouldn't stop him from doing it anyway, and there's a part of him that doesn't want Tony to stop. 

Bruce has come to terms with being only half human, but he's never been able to stomach being half monster. He gave up on a cure for the beast inside him a long time ago, but if there's a way to tame it, instead? If there's a chance he could harness that power for something positive, something _better_?

If there's even the slightest chance of that, he has to take it. And maybe, in this one thing, Tony sees the path in a way Bruce can't. 

He lets out a long, shaky breath and says, "This little outing. It was never about sushi, was it."

"Of course not." Tony's eyes are infinitely kind. "You don't even like sushi," he says. 

~

Tony expects Bruce to need some time to process. It seems to be one of his favorite activities. He doesn't expect it to take days and days and _days_ , but then Tony himself is not much for processing. It'll take as long as it takes, a point Pepper delights in making every time Bruce's name comes up in conversation. Which is a lot, to be fair, but come _on._ A brain like Banner's should be able to move this kind of thing right along.

It takes so long for the results to manifest that at first, Tony doesn't know what he's looking at. It shows up in his to-do list, which JARVIS has been displaying closer and closer to the center of Tony's field of vision (and in increasingly lurid colors and fonts) for the past several hours. It looks like something Tony might need to sign off on, which in his mind means something that should be Pepper's problem.

"Okay, I get it, JARVIS," he says, "enough! I'm reading it!"

"Thank you, sir," JARVIS says, and the text returns to its proper size, shape, and color. "I believe you'll find lines six through forty-seven particularly interesting."

Lines one through five cover the weekly grocery and supply deliveries for the residence levels of the Tower, and then things start to get... a little nutty. 

"I didn't order any of this stuff," Tony mutters, scanning down the list. He opens a call to Pepper and when she picks up, flicks the list over to the corner of her screen. "Hey, did you order this stuff?"

"I don't even know what most of this stuff is," Pepper tells him after a moment. "Also, I'm working."

"Hey, I'm working, too! I'm working on this thing, which I'm apparently supposed to sign, which probably you should have seen before I did. Why didn't you see this before I did?"

"Because I don't run your household anymore," she says patiently, not even bothering to look up from whatever other thing it is she's reading on her desk. "I run your company now. Deviations from the usual order pattern are your problem, not mine, and JARVIS has instructions to act accordingly."

"There are days when I wish I'd given more thought to this whole promotion idea," Tony says. "The power has gone right to your head."

"There are days I wish the same thing," she tells him. "Usually when it's 9pm and I'm still at the office. Doing your job. In strappy heels, I might add."

"That's unconscionable. Your boss must be a real dick."

"I don't have a boss." She looks up finally, grinning at him. "I am the boss. You should remember that. I'm hanging up now, I'll see you when I get back."

And she cuts the connection, like she can take or leave him, makes no difference. It's simultaneously the thing he likes least and most about Pepper. She doesn't particularly need him, but for some reason, she sticks around anyway. 

"I _own_ the company," Tony tells JARVIS. "Technically, I'm still her boss."

"Indeed, sir," JARVIS says, an unflatteringly skeptical note in his voice.

Beset on all sides, Tony closes out his work and opens another connection. While he waits, he turns to grab a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and nearly falls over. There's a long stretch of amused mutant physicist leaning against the open door to his workshop, and oh -- oh, okay, so that's where all that stuff came from. Interesting.

"JARVIS, you're fired," Tony says absently, brows drawing together as he watches Bruce hold up the door frame. 

"I'll make a note in my employment file, sir."

"It's not his fault. I told him I didn't want to disturb you if you were busy."

"And therein lies the problem. JARVIS, please remind the room who is the boss of you," Tony requests.

"I believe I am at present unemployed," JARVIS says drily.

"Once I rehire you, who will be the boss of you?"

"That will depend entirely upon the outcome of the salary negotiations."

"God, the crap I put up with," Tony mutters darkly toward the ceiling. "Bruce, hello. How the hell are you, buddy?" That draws out a smile; half of one, anyway, and Tony considers his work here well begun. "By the way, just checking in: did you just submit a purchase order for a state-of-the-art radiological microscopy suite worth the gross national product of a small third world nation, and 18 pairs of Smartwool hiking socks?"

"Well," Bruce says, crossing the room slowly, like he's gauging Tony's level of potential displeasure, "you did say I should ask JARVIS for anything I wanted, and the floors in the lab get a little chilly sometimes."

"I think -- no, I know it. You are officially my favorite person ever. Do you know you've now spent more of my money than any other person in the world who isn't _me_?"

Bruce's shoulders rise and fall, and he looks at Tony over the rims of his glasses, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "If you like that, you're going to love it when I start hiring lab techs."

Tony's eyes go wide and all the air in his lungs escapes him in a rush, because finally, _that's Bruce Banner._ Tony's been waiting to meet this guy for a month, and there he is. 

He has so many things to say, but he can't catch his breath. All he can do is grin so wide it hurts, and keep his hands to himself instead of reaching out to grab Bruce like he wants to. If he did that, he's not sure what he'd do next; what do you even _do_ with this guy, once you have him?

And then he stands up and grabs Bruce anyway, because fuck that, Tony does have him; what else is this, if not Bruce saying Tony _has_ him? He pulls Bruce in by his shoulders and wraps his arms around him, one hand landing in Bruce's hair and ruffling it fiercely. Why the hell not. Bruce hooks his chin over Tony's shoulder and hugs back just as hard, which is as good as permission, so Tony holds on even tighter.

"Did it occur to you," Tony says, directly into Bruce's ear, "when ordering this frankly pornographic array of technological marvels, that even _I_ can't work that kind of magic overnight? We're looking at a significant time commitment, here."

Bruce laughs, a low and somehow jagged sound. "Yeah? Amazon Prime says they can get my socks here no later than 8pm tomorrow, so..."

Tony smacks the back of Bruce's head and shoves him back, laughing. "Awesome. If they carry electron microscopes, you're all set."

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks for sticking with me! I know it's a sloooow burn, but it'll get there, I promise. :) The next story in this series has grown legs (and plot), and is taking me a little longer than usual to finish, so please bear with me!
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please consider [reblogging on tumblr](https://mollyamory-again.tumblr.com/post/184679955583/hard-sell-molly-marvel-cinematic-universe).


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